A physician assistant career is a highly respected role, one that easily allows the competent, medically-trained individual to “stand-in” for a physician. This career offers diverse opportunities to work almost anywhere in the health field, yet many physician assistants or PAs narrow their vision to the typical hospital setting and compete for the same jobs.

A career as a PA has come a long way, having started with military-medic corpsmen —who upon returning home from Vietnam—needed to utilize their freshly expanded medical skill. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), the first Physician Assistant training program was founded by a physician at Duke University.

Now, the more than 90,000 ‘strong’ PAs dominated by women are entrenched in the health care system, according to the American Medical Association (AMA). Rapid growth of this profession is projected for at least the next ten years—and accredited programs are steadily increasing to one-and-a-half times its already impressive 164 programs, plus with the anticipated churning out of --20,000 enrolled students within the next year or two--competition for the best physician assistant job will be fierce.

States with the Highest Employment of PAs

Even when a physician assistant emerges as valedictorian from a prestigious school like Duke University, and is deemed an all-rounder, she or he may not make the cut for a hospital job if administration is already overwhelmed by applicants crowding for the same post.

Depending on the size of a hospital, on average one to three PAs may be hired on staff. The hours worked may vary between full-time and part-time. The role may also take the form of a PA being ‘on-call’ to handle busy days, contribute where short-staffing exist or showing up to answer patient questions, handle bedside care, and perhaps perform diagnostic analysis.

The fact is that less than a handful of PAs is needed at any one time in hospitals.

With that being said, unless a PA has a wide body of knowledge and experience with unique talents will he or she come out on top in a narrow job market. The Bureau of Labor Statistics listed the states with the highest concentration of PAs for 2012. These are:

States with Highest PA Employment:

New York

California

Texas

Pennsylvania

North Carolina

Georgia

Washington, DC

Physician assistants who are applying for jobs in these states or who reside within their locale are set to have a challenging job hunt.

Avoid the Competition - Use Smarts to Increase Job Prospects

Although PA job prospects are growing, just like any other market, there are saturation pockets; added to that is a downturned economy with businesses paying keen attention to cost-effectiveness.

Unless PAs become more adaptable creatures, willing to tweak their career goals and relocate to smaller more intimate settings, then unfortunately a long unproductive stay at home is imminent.

How to Avoid the Competition

The best way to avoid the competition is to use strategies to create job prospects. PAs can become the principal care provider in the countryside or in rural clinics. In a small to medium-sized private practice, a PA can run a full-time schedule on her or his own, where the physician drops-in for only two or three days out of the week. Naturally as required by law, PAs need to confer with the supervising physician.

Other areas where PAs will have increased job prospects include out-patient care, making house calls or doing patient checks at hospitals and nursing homes, reporting back to the presiding physician.

Additionally, PAs can consider these locations with the highest job offers:

Alaska

Maine

West Virginia

Idaho

South Dakota

When PAs expand their career ambitions, they’ll have little worry finding jobs. PAs may also discover that they have more job satisfaction and flexible working hours working in rural communities and in solo-practice environments.